Breathe
By Linda Atach Zaga
"For us, the virtual is real, they don't need to penetrate you to violate your body. Every time they share packs and nudes, without authorization it serves for harassment, persecution, mockery, humiliation or citizen scrutiny, not for something public, but for the intimacy of women, for their private life, for their sexuality."-OlimpiaCoral Melo
Revenge porn is one of the most destructive forms of violence against women and has unimaginable scope. Very different from other aggressions that use threats, touch the body or seek to control the victim's life, digital violence highlights the most personal and intimate, because in addition to displaying the body and emotionally killing the victim the thousands or millions of times she is seen in the universe of networks, it takes her integrity and essence, condemning her to pain and trauma very difficult and in many cases, impossible to overcome.
Let's start with disappointment. There is nothing worse than being deceived by the one you love the most and who is supposed to reciprocate and take care of you. At the age of 18, Olimpia Coral Melo decided to establish an intimate relationship based on love and trust and was betrayed by her macho partner who, without the slightest decency, respect for her life and future, scorned her by broadcasting a video of the two of them in the middle of a sexual act.
Obviously the images only showed Olimpia's body, with the face and emotions of a barely adult girl determined to devote herself to love or joy or whatever, but who deserved the respect of seeing her privacy safe.
I ask you to empathize or just imagine what this aggression caused in the young woman: can you feel her disappointment and fear? Can you understand what it meant for her to continue when after the posts she began to suffer threats, harassment and the scorn of almost everyone she knew?
I don't think so. Or at least I am not capable of feeling, much less imagining myself going through that violence, or showing my face. Nor responding in the brave way she did.
Initially, Olimpia lived immersed in guilt and regret. She also went through severe depression and tried to take her own life on several occasions. Until, from questions such as Why did he do this to me? How could I trust him? or What will become of me? she understood that there was no other way but to change her destiny and that of many others like her by seeking justice, shouting no to impunity and proposing laws to combat digital violence.
Founder of "Women Against Gender Violence" and the "National Front for Sorority", Olimpia did not stop fighting until she achieved the implementation of the Olimpia Law (2018), a regulation with the power to point out digital violence and punish with up to six years in prison those who disseminate intimate materials without the consent of the participants. And that was just the beginning.
